


Home is

by LovelyOne



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:17:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyOne/pseuds/LovelyOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where does Malcolm go when there's no place left to go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home is

Jamie Macdonald had managed not to age between storming out of London and sitting in his beaten up ford focus, driving sedately through the streets of Glasgow six years later. Malcolm hated him a little bit for that. He'd aged a hundred years in the same timeframe and could no longer stand his own reflection. 

Turning up at Maggie's house had been a risk. Jamie's mother had as explosive a temper as the man himself but she'd been kind to Malcolm through much of his twenties and he'd received such little kindness in his life that she was one of the few people he genuinely cherished. The slap she gave him upon opening the door was well deserved. As was the furious rant about family and the ridiculousness of men and twenty five fucking years between visits thank you very much Mister Tucker!

Maggie had raised three sons. Not to mention any stray friends those sons had brought home over the years. Not to mention the grandsons that he was sure he'd spied staring at him through the banisters as he entered the Macdonald house. She knew all about boys. Men did not impress her one bit, they were simply bigger boys.

He didn't feel he deserved the hug she gave him after sitting him down with a cup of tea at the enormous wooden table. He didn't deserve her whisht of comfort when he felt his shoulders give a treacherous shudder as his iron clad control slipped a notch. He didn't deserve her fondly ruffling his hair as though he were one of her precious children. 

He was ashamed of the knowledge that if she had not been the only way he could think of to get to Jamie then it would have perhaps been even longer than twenty five years. He hadn't thought to visit her for her own sake. 

He thought she would mention Jamie's return home. That she would be angry about his perceived betrayal of her youngest. He should really have known better he supposed. She said nothing of it save to comment on the two of them 'falling out' being such a sad thing. 

He didn't get long before Jamie arrived, clearly having been called by one of the upstairs boys before Maggie could make the call herself. He barrelled through the front door, shouting muffled expletives and stomping mud off his boots before appearing in the kitchen, all red face and bunched fists. 

He stopped to kiss his Ma and say hello mid bellow as she rose to greet him but lost no time getting straight into Malcolm's face as he sat gripping his tea. 

Malcolm suddenly found himself incapable of maintaining eye contact and turned his head, glaring at the table beneath him. He was horribly aware of the flush creeping up his face and the thought that this was a terrible, awful idea as Jamie demanded an explanation for his sudden reappearance. Because why the fuck was he here again?

"Well? Come on fuckface. Answer me before i shove that teacup up your arse and send you on your merry fucking way!" 

Thoughts shuttled through his mind. How to explain? How to explain that he simply didn't know what else to do. Where else to go. Who else might possibly want him anywhere near them after the fucking disaster this year had been? After he became so much toxic waste that he didn't even dare contact Sam to get Jamie's address for fear her new employers would hear about it and sack her. 

He'd become so paranoid in his loneliness, only the lawyer for human contact in months that he stopped leaving the house altogether once he'd been aquitted and no longer even had those extremely expensive conversations to look forward to. 

How to tell Jamie that he had never regretted anything in his life as much as he regretted pushing him away and that all he could hear during the self enforced solitude in his own house was his thundering heartbeat and the word "Jamie" repeating through his head in increasingly desperate tones. 

He didn't know. So that's what he said.

The sudden silence in the room forced him to look up. Both Macdonalds were staring at him with matching concern. He found himself fidgeting under the weight of the dual gaze, tugging the sleeves of his jumper over his hands and worrying the edges of the fabric with his finger tips. 

Jamie sat down with a whooshing sigh, as though the rage was being expelled and causing him to deflate. 

"Because that is what home is, my boys." Mrs Macdonald said with a slow smile and a faraway look. "When you have to go there, they have to take you in."

*  
Jamie decided it was time to leave and let his poor mother get on with her day. She made them promise to return the following day for tea. 

Malcolm was at a loss as to what to say and accepted the hug and kiss goodbye in silence. He didn't trust himself to speak and not sound like a complete sap.

It wasn't long before conversation began to flow a little more normally once they were in the car and on their way to Jamie's flat.

"Oh because you've suddenly never-"

"I'm not talking about doing it. Of course you fucking did it, that's how it's DONE. I'm talking about getting caught with your trousers down and your cock hanging out. I'm talking about having it written there for the fucking world to see!"

"Yeah well....i had other things on my mind." 

"Yeah? Orchestrating a dancing pork chop and a teasing reveal of the inner workings of Nicola-what the fuck were you thinking- Murray's cavernous head? What a devious scheme, Malc. I can see how that took your full attention, yeah."

"Hey hey! You don't know shite ok? She was making the party look like a joke-"

"No. No Malcolm. She'd done that from the start. You were fine with it- you fucking put her there after all- no. What actually happened eh? Did she get a little big for her boots? Did Mummy start wearing Daddy's trousers? Did she make you wear the frilly pinny? Eh? "

"Fuck you."

"Aw. Bless. Well. At least you destroyed her in the end then. Oh wait. No. You tipped her out of her chair no problem but she's already back in a comfy advisory position. It's you that's politically fucking radioactive. It's you that's had to spend a fuck ton of money to avoid a holiday at her majesty's pleasure- oh whatever the fucking phrase is- it's you who is hiding like a wee jessie and weeping at MY fucking feet."

"I am not fucking weeping you inbred fucking six toed-"

"You're here though, eh? Couldn't spare me a fucking second of your precious time in the last six years after kicking me out."

"I gave you a fucking spectacular reference, thank you very much."

"Oh yeah. Thanks ever so. Prick."

"Dickhead. Watch the fucking road."

"What do you want for tea?"

"I don't mind."

"Fish and chips?"

"If you want."

"Do you even eat? You are the sorriest fucking scarecrow I've ever seen."

"Of course I fucking eat. You've seen me eat loads of times."

"Aye. Fucking oranges. I fancy fish and chips."

"Well good for you."

"We'll ask em if they can deep fry you a satsuma."


End file.
